Historic Crew Dragon flight concludes with Atlantic splashdown

Historic Crew Dragon flight concludes with Atlantic splashdown

The historic Crew Dragon Demo-1 mission has come to a conclusion with a successful splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean not far from where its mission began six days ago.

Following a five-day mission attached to the International Space Station, the unpiloted Crew Dragon autonomously undocked at 07:32 UTC March 8, 2019, and began moving to a safe distance. The spacecraft left the vicinity of the outpost about 20 minutes later.

Read More

ISS astronauts assemble tools for robotic refueling demo

ISS astronauts assemble tools for robotic refueling demo

If humans are ever to settle the Solar System sustainably, a number of technologies will need to be perfected, including in-space refueling.

As such, NASA created the Robotic Refueling Mission, or RRM, a series of experiments designed to understand and perfect technologies for robotic propellant transfer and help extend the life of spacecraft.

Read More

'New era in spaceflight': Crew Dragon docks with ISS

'New era in spaceflight': Crew Dragon docks with ISS

For the first time since the end of the Space Shuttle program, a U.S. spacecraft designed to fly humans has docked with the International Space Station.

At 10:51 UTC March 3, SpaceX’s unpiloted Crew Dragon Demo-1 spacecraft made contact with the docking adapter at the forward end of the International Space Station.

Read More

NG-10 Cygnus ends post-ISS mission after deploying satellites

NG-10 Cygnus ends post-ISS mission after deploying satellites

Having launched Nov. 17, 2018, and spent 81 days attached to the International Space Station, the NG-10 Cygnus, named SS John Glenn by Northrop Grumman, was unberthed Feb. 8 to perform a two-week stand-alone mission. That post-ISS flight came to an end at about 09:00 UTC Feb. 25, 2019, when the spacecraft’s engine performed a deorbit burn to lower its orbit enough for Earth’s atmosphere to drag it down, safely burning it up of the Pacific Ocean.

Read More

NG-10 Cygnus departs ISS to perform secondary mission

NG-10 Cygnus departs ISS to perform secondary mission

Northrop Grumman’s NG-10 Cygnus spacecraft has departed the International Space Station after three months at the orbiting complex.

Loaded inside the disposable cargo freighter is 2,500 kilograms of trash and unneeded equipment. Cygnus is now set to perform a two-week free-flight mission to deploy three CubeSats, according to NASA.

Read More

SpaceX completes 16th Dragon mission to ISS

SpaceX completes 16th Dragon mission to ISS

After spending just over a month attached to the International Space Station, SpaceX's CRS-16 Dragon spacecraft departed the outpost and returned to Earth.

Loaded with more than 1,800 kilograms of equipment and experiments for a return to Earth, Dragon was unberthed from the Harmony module at around 20:00 UTC Jan. 13, 2019.

Read More

Crewed flights to ISS resume with Soyuz MS-11 launch

Crewed flights to ISS resume with Soyuz MS-11 launch

Normalcy is beginning to return to International Space Station operations as the crew of Soyuz MS-11 successfully launched and docked with the orbiting outpost—seven weeks after an in-flight abort thwarted plans of the previous human spaceflight.

Liftoff took place atop a Soyuz-FG rocket at 11:31 UTC Dec. 3, 2018, from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Read More

Emirati astronaut to fly to ISS in 2019

Emirati astronaut to fly to ISS in 2019

The United Arab Emirates is slated to send its first astronaut to the International Space Station in the spring of 2019.

Either Hazza al-Mansouri, 34, or Sultan al-Neyadi, 37, will fly into orbit in Soyuz MS-12 alongside Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Christina Hammock.

Read More